Slevin argues that the unethical labor practices in composition (primarily the reliance on underpaid part-time adjuncts to teach most required college writing courses) is a major problem for the field. He contends that part-time instructor’s low pay, poor working conditions, absent contracts, and lack of benefits contribute to low morale, which in turn affects students, departments, and the university at large (3). He rejects the argument that the hiring of part-time instructors is a result of poor economic times and downturn in student enrollment; instead, he claims employing marginal faculty is a choice universities make in part because of the literature/composition split in English department history, which makes the academic field of composition – and in turn those who teach it – the underclass in powerful English departments. Slevin maintains that the labor situation and the perception of composition in the academy will not change because those in the field think it should, say that it should, or write that it should. Instead, he argues that the field take up professional activitism and work towards these goals in the institution (15).

Notes and Quotes

problem with course catalogues – they detail the number of courses but not the sections. So first-year writing is just one course, but we overlook that it could be 70% of the sections taught in the department.

composition textbooks – how a lot of knowledge about writing and writing instruction is published to the field – is not looked as scholarship by the rest of the academy.

“We should no longer hide from ourselves or from others that our profession, as it is now practiced in this country, rests on, is based on, a foundation of despicable inequality…It is not a peripheral, temporary problem that is somehow going to go away by itself” (2).

Advertisements

Comments Off on Slevin, Depoliticizing and Politicizing Composition Studies